


Behind closed doors: collected oral histories of queer community in New York, 1930-1945. doi 10.1999/journal.amhistqstud.32557038

by wobblyheadeddollcaper



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 1930s gay bar, Academia, Kissing, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Post-CA:TWS, discussion of sex acts, historic racism and violence, lgbt history
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-04 03:32:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4124145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wobblyheadeddollcaper/pseuds/wobblyheadeddollcaper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers, supersoldier and inept historian, confronts the absence of evidence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For claudiastar, with gratitude.

**Before**

Steve starts by going to the block where the Black Cat gentlemen’s club used to be. There’s no trace of it. He remembers the address, could find it blindfolded from Grand Central station, but there’s a bodega there now. When he goes in, he talks to the till staffer, the manager and the owner in quick succession, getting passed on up the line. The owner doesn’t know anything about the building further back than 1989.

He tells the names over in his head. Bernie, Roy, Charlie, Rick, Gracie. He’s drawn them all a few times, even tried to age up the sketches a couple of times, but barring a miracle like his own they’re all dead. He and Bucky were usually the youngest guys in the joint at twenty. It was supposed to be twenty-one and up, but Gracie had stretched the rules for them on account of how they were from far enough outside Harlem that their families wouldn’t find them, and deep enough into the scene that they weren’t going to get shocked and call the cops in. Gracie didn’t like chickenhawks and the younger men they brought round, she was too cautious. You could get away with that kind of thing on Park Avenue, rich theatre producers and young actors having cocktail parties in fancy apartments. Gracie was a single Black woman with a kid, she was running a business, and she preferred never getting noticed to paying off the cops.

He doesn’t know why it eats at him so much. Maybe because SHIELD had given him whole dossiers on the post-war lives of the Howling Commandos, on the descendants and survivors of Bucky’s family (Steve’s family line having come to an end with him), even on people he had been friendly with at the Art Students League of New York. But he and Bucky had been most fully themselves at the Black Cat, where they had been openly together. He had loved and fucked around and made good friends there, friends who knew all sides of him, and those friends had vanished as if they had never existed.

He heads to the public library next, but they send him over to the deed polls section of city records, and a couple of long afternoons in he finds that a long-dead man called Leo Freeman had bought the building in 1932, and sold it in 1946. Leo had no children. Gracie, he’s pretty sure, had rented the club out from someone called Bill. It could have paid for been under the table, for all he knows, leaving no records at all even if he knew where to look for them. Gracie’s surname had never come up, so he can’t look for her daughter – if the daughter had even kept Gracie’s name at all, and not her absent father’s.

God, they had all been so fucking careful. No last names, only a few careful photographs, probably long since burned or lost. Bucky had favoured the Black Cat as a more discreet alternative to the clubs in Greenwich Village. Bucky had always been more cautious about going out than Steve, which was fair enough given his family (huge, Catholic, Bucky the favoured eldest son) and what a disaster it would be if Bucky’s parents found out that he and Steve were more than good friends. It hurts even to think about how careful Bucky had been, hiding himself so much of the time only to die young and leave no trace upon the earth except the longing in Steve’s head and a gravestone over an empty grave.

Steve really wishes he could get drunk. He hits punchbags instead.

**After**

Bucky’s alive, alive, alive and Steve can’t find him. This sudden hope is like having a badly-healed leg broken again and reset. It hurts but it’s so much better than not having it.

After three months he can’t usefully look anywhere new, so he’s stuck waiting either for information or for Bucky to remember enough to come back to him. If Steve can’t find him, Bucky is hopefully having equal luck hiding from everyone else chasing the Winter Soldier. Steve moves to Brooklyn, keeps his ears open, makes himself as visible as he can and prays.

Prayer and press conferences don’t take up as much time as he’d like, though. He starts thinking about the Black Cat again, this time with the benefit of a few years in the future and some cultural context. The AIDS pandemic, the Stonewall Inn, decriminalisation, equal marriage, Don’t Ask Don’t tell, Liberace, James Baldwin, Gore Vidal, Leslie Feinberg, Ellen DeGeneres, Harvey Milk. It’s like looking for a drop of whisky by drinking from a firehose, one gay bar in a century of change and concealment.

The internet is less helpful than people seem to think is. Lots of general history, some book titles he makes a note of to order later. ‘Harlem and Greenwich Village were centres of queer activity in New York before the war. Prohibition had lead to an explosion of covert establishments in which gay and lesbian people could-‘

“No shit,” he mumbles under his breath, scanning through the rest of the article. “Why do you think I’m looking here?” The Black Cat doesn’t show up on any of the lists of names he finds. There are hundreds of people called Bernie, Roy, Charlie, Rick, Gracie.

Eventually he takes a deep breath and talks to Sam over lunch at Steve’s new apartment. Sam brings cake. Steve sets him up with a sandwich, and they talk about Sam’s family, how the VA administration is fucking up again.

“While you’re here,” Steve says finally, bringing out plates for the cake. “This is going to sound stupid, but I want to track down some old friends of mine, and I want your advice.”

“More old friends – are they also on the run? Because that first friend is proving to be kinda difficult already.”

“No, these ones are dead. I mean, it would be nice, but,” Steve shrugs, “almost certainly dead of old age.”

“Why look now? And why can’t you find them?”

Steve blows out a breath. “I’m, uh, bisexual. These were friends from the scene. There aren’t any records.” He feels his face reddening.

“Okay,” Sam says. “And, going out on a limb here, but Bucky…”

“Was my man. My… partner, boyfriend, whatever you call it.” He might as well have it all out.

Sam is silent for a long moment. Steve has a sudden doubt – he and Sam have never actually talked about gay marriage or anything, maybe he’s read him wrong, maybe Sam’s a good guy but couldn’t care less about-

“Well, that… makes a lot of sense,” Sam says. “Like, a lot more sense. A lot.” Sam laughs. “And you want to look for your other friends now because… yep, that makes sense too. Have you – how many people know that you’re bisexual?”

“Just you.”

“I… really?”

“Yep,” Steve smiles wryly. “Despite what Natasha may say, I’m pretty secretive. You’re the best friend I’ve had since I woke up.”

Sam reaches out to clap him on the shoulder, then visibly reconsiders and walks round the table for a real hug.

“Don’t get sappy on me,” Steve says, laughing in relief as he hugs back.

“Oh, you don’t get to pull that on me. Okay, cut the damn cake. How have you been looking so far?”

Sam nods along as Steve describes his search.

“What you need is an expert. Which probably means a historian. The easiest way is probably to trade information – I’m sure you’ve had all kinds of historians wanting to talk to you.”

“Mainly about the war.” Steve makes a face. The historical interviews he’s had so far haven’t been very comfortable for him or his interviewers.  


“So find someone who studies, whatever, New York gay bars of the late 1930s.”

“There are a couple of people who’ve written books,” Steve says, going over to his bookshelf and picking out the books he’d ordered. “I suppose I just can’t tell whether I can trust them.”

“To keep a secret?” Sam looks serious. “It’s a risk. Is it a secret you want to keep for the rest of your life?”

Steve takes a moment to think about it.

“No,” he decides. “Except… I haven’t come out before now because it never really – it’s not something I ever thought of doing. ”

“You had other things on your mind,” Sam allows. “Aliens and so on.”

“Now… Bucky’s alive. I wouldn’t just be outing myself.” Steve hadn’t been as careful in his activities as Bucky. With his mother dead he hadn’t had family to embarrass. Thinking about it, it was a surprise that no one had ever, even after legalisation, come forward to tell the world about the times Steve Rogers had cruised Greenwich Village for a quick lay. He probably wouldn’t have minded if he had woken up to a world that knew his sexuality. But to know about Steve was to at least wonder about Bucky Barnes.

“Honestly, on the day that you do find him, the seventy years of assassinations are probably going to be more on his mind. Just saying,” Sam says, raising his hands apologetically as Steve winces. “And he would probably want to know about these friends of yours as well.”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “They were good people. Gracie – you would have liked Gracie. Natasha and Gracie would have got on like a house on fire. She ran the club, said she made it a queer bar because queer guys were less hassle and didn’t get handsy. Roy was the art student who invited me over the first time, he was this skinny Dutch guy from Philly. Bernie was the guy Bucky and I, uh…”

“Oh, go on,” Sam says, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, young men, big city.” Steve says, rubbing a hand over his rueful smile. “It’s not like Buck and I were married.”

“You wanted my advice, here it is. Phone this-“ he flips over the book in front of him “-V.A.Taylor, PhD, and make an appointment. If you don’t trust her, don’t tell her.”


	2. Chapter 2

Luckily for Steve, Verity Taylor works at NYU and is free to meet him next morning. She turns out to be a tiny dark-haired woman with an English accent.

“Wow, you are Cap- Steve Rogers. I thought someone might be punking me.” Steve shakes her hand. She has a firm, quick handshake, and she doesn’t hide the evaluating look in her brown eyes. He generally trusts people quickly if he’s going to trust them at all.

“Do you have somewhere private we can talk?” He can feel the receptionist watching him.

She leads him from the reception desk of 53 Washington Square, through a maze of corridors to what is possibly the smallest office Steve has ever been in, although it may look smaller due to the towers of books and printouts stacked against the grimy walls and the presence of two startlingly ugly brown filing cabinets.

“So,” she says, sitting behind her overflowing desk and gesturing him to take the only other chair. “What can I do for you?”

“I have a request and an offer. I need to find out some historical information, and I’m going to need you to keep the details of the request secret. This is personal,” he clarified quickly as she frowned. “Not official. In return, I’m prepared to offer details of my life before the war that are not public knowledge.”

”There are a hundred historians in this state alone who would kill for Captain America’s exclusive life story. I’m not one of them. I specialize in twentieth-century queer history, undocumented communities… which you already know,” she says slowly, realisation dawning.

“Which I already know. I read your book,” Steve says.

“What would I be able to publish?”

“Immediately: a couple of stories with corroborating evidence that can’t be attributed to me by name. Eventually, I hope, everything, but there are a few factors in play… I can promise that if anyone got to publish anything with my name in it, it would be you.”

“I – yes, okay, where do I sign?”

“You sure?” He fishes out a non-disclosure agreement that Sam had helped him put together from the internet.

“You’re offering one hell of a bait, Captain Rogers.” She skims it through and signs.

“Given what I’m about to be telling you – call me Steve. I need you to find out what happened to some people from 1939.”

He starts by describing the Black Cat club, the address, the clientele.

“The people I want to find are the proprietor, Gracie, and some regulars, Bernie, Charlie, Rick and Roy. Gracie was Black, in her forties. Rick and Roy were white, Charlie and Bernie were Black.” She takes notes.

“Do you know any birthdays?”

“Rick had a birthday in December. He bought a round of drinks. I got drunker than I meant to and fell into the Christmas tree.”

“Late December, then?”

“Yes...” Steve thinks. “After the 18th, in 1940 because that was when I got hired for the Christmas rush at the post office, and I was worried about being hungover at work.”

“Any idea which birthday?”

“Everyone was over twenty-one. Rick would have been… early twenties? Twenty-six in ‘43. He worked as a file clerk somewhere in Manhattan. Roy was an art student from Philly, we met at the ASL, he recognised I was queer and introduced me along. Bernie, I don’t know. Charlie was a drag queen on occasion, I don’t know what he did but he might have been in theatre or music hall. He had a professional-looking greasepaint set.”

“Were any of them drafted, did they volunteer?”

“I think Charlie might have volunteered, early on. He stopped showing up in, I guess, summer of ’42?” And Steve had been so preoccupied with getting into the army himself that he’d barely noticed. He wants to go back and slap himself sometimes. “Sometimes people just stopped showing up, though. A month would go by, you wouldn’t see them, and you hoped they’d maybe just moved away or turned straight or something.”

“You had no way of knowing, unless people said they were leaving.” It’s not quite a question.

“People tried to let Gracie know, at least. When Harry got called to California unexpectedly, he called her from the train station. The phone – of course, the phone line, it was number HA2-1145. That’s, how did I forget that?” He shakes his head. Bucky had made sure they both memorised the number, for emergencies. He used to mouth it into Steve’s shoulder at night.

“What about Roy,” Dr Taylor says, looking over her notes. “He was from Philadelphia, where was he studying art?”

“Columbia, I think. In 1939 at least.”

“That’ll be useful. Any idea where they lived?”

“Gracie lived near the bar, maybe even in the building above it? Same street, anyway, she would leave sometimes to check on her daughter.”

“How old was her daughter?”

“Less than ten. Her tenth birthday would have been in… ’44 or ’45.”

“How do you know that?”

“I was overseas and… one of the guys said something about missing Gracie’s kid’s birthday.”

“You served with one of them-”

“This is the secret bit. Don’t write this down. Bucky Barnes, he was…” God, it’s hard to say. Force of habit is strong. “We were… involved.”

“Well,” she says brightly, after a moment of stunned silence, “If you ever do let me publish, I’m going to be rich.”

“You’re the second person I’ve told since I woke up.”

“I’m… excuse me.” She puts down the notebook. “Steve, are you all right?” She looks worried. He forces a smile onto his face.

“Fine, I’m… actually, a glass of water would be good, if you wouldn’t mind.” He tries to compose himself while she hunts for a clean mug and leaves her office to fill it. It’s so much, so quickly, things he’s never told anyone else because they either knew already or they weren’t supposed to know.

“Sorry, Doctor Taylor,” he apologises as she hands him the full mug. “It’s just been a long time.”

“Verity, please. And you have nothing to apologise for. I get too focused on the details, I’m told.”

“You would have been a good intelligence agent,” Steve says, thinking about all the things he hadn’t known he remembered. Gracie’s daughter might even still be alive.

“I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”

“Oh, some of my best friends are agents.”

“Then thank you, I suppose. Would you like to continue this another day? I have enough for a first pass at the archives.”

“Thank you. This is – I’m grateful. How soon can we meet again?”

“Give me three days, we can meet at, h’mm, one? I may need to bring in other people, but I won’t tell them anything about why I’m looking for the Black Cat – is that okay?”

“Yes.” He takes out his phone and puts in the appointment. “I’ll send you my number. Let me know when you find anything, please.”

*

Two days later he gets a call from Verity.

“I’ve just had a very odd visit from a man claiming to be janitorial staff. He came in as I was leaving for lunch and said he was there to clean my office. I told him the janitors were on strike and he left. I’ve stayed in my office since then.”

“You think he might want your notes about me?”

“I haven’t got anything else worth stealing.” She pauses, and for a moment Steve thinks the line has gone dead. “It’s going to sound silly, but he looked a lot like Bucky Barnes.”


	3. Chapter 3

“It’s going to sound silly, but he looked a lot like Bucky Barnes.”

“Stay there. Wait.” It might be dangerous, he doesn’t know if Bucky would hurt her. “I’m on my way over. I – I might have to borrow your office.”

He hangs up on her questions and grabs his shield, then runs outside to hail a cab. It turns out the shield is a great way to hail a cab, if you don’t mind the cab driver asking the usual twenty questions Steve gets about being Captain America.

“I have to get to Washington Square right fucking now,” Steve interrupts. “Please.”

What follows might be the closest he has ever come to death, but everyone survives long enough to get to Washington Square. He throws a hundred dollars at the cab driver and runs up to Verity’s office, where she is quietly eating an egg sandwich.

“Right, you,” she says, narrowing her eyes at him. “Answers.”

“Classified,” Steve says firmly, still buzzing from the journey.

“But-“

“No. I’m staying here until you go home, and then I’m still staying here.”

“If you destroy my office, you have to pay for it.”

“I think I can cover it. Might have to hit the flea markets to replace those cabinets though.”

“I suddenly understand a lot more about your military career,” she says wryly. “Fine. Since you’re here, we might as well go over what I’ve discovered.”

“You’ve found them?”

“I’ve found Roy. Roy Bakker, born 1918 in Philadelphia. He was employed as a war artist during World War two, in the Pacific theatre. He seems to have found a long term partner in 1951, another artist called Simon Pitt, who was a couple of years younger. They shared an apartment in Greenwich Village until 1969, then moved out to a townhouse. There’s a picture of him in the Village Voice in ’71.” She takes a photocopy out of a file and pushes it towards Steve.

 _Jesus, he looks old_. Roy’s red hair had faded to white, Steve can tell even in the grainy black-and-white image. He’d put on a little weight but his arms – holding a banner that’s out of frame – were still skinny.

“That – that’s him. That’s Roy.” He looks up at her. “Thank you.” She looks away.

“I – shall I go on? I don’t want to distress you.”

“Yes, please. I do know that he’s dead,” Steve says, trying to smile.

“Tuberculosis in 1979, which might mean actual TB or, more probably, undiagnosed AIDS. Survived by Simon for a year, and by his niece, a Sandra Bakker. She’s alive and living in Oregon.”

Steve takes a long, shaky breath.

“Was he happy?”

She looks close to tears. “He had a good life, he was a respected member of the community. I think so, I really do. He and his partner were together for a long time.”

“Good, that’s good,” Steve says. “I knew he was dead. I’m glad he had a good life. What else?”

“I think Gracie might be Grace Everett or Grace Harker. Either would fit, but I haven’t been able to find a picture yet.”

“You work fast. Thank you. I – do you have any more questions?”

“Oh, yes. I – should I stay here until the building closes? Because unless there are reasons of national security to keep me here I could go to the library afterwards.”

“That should be fine. I expect he’ll wait until lights out to come back.”

“I’m really not comfortable with this.”

“Everything will be fine, I swear. Ask me some questions.”

She sighs and opens her notebook. “How did you first find the Black Cat?”

“Roy and I had been taking a life drawing class together. There was a male nude model one day, and we sort of – noticed each other noticing, if you know what I mean. He asked afterwards whether I wanted to go get a drink somewhere. I suggested the Ball and Chain, and he looked kind of surprised. It had a bit of a reputation as a wild place. I probably got in fights more often than I got, uh, than I met someone.”

“Was this before your relationship with Bucky Barnes?”

“Bucky and I had an understanding. He didn’t like to go out as much as I did, not to queer clubs. He had a big family, he didn’t want to embarrass them, so he went dancing with girls. I liked to be out somewhere where people wanted to dance with me, which girls back then did not. Sometimes if things were right I had a… fling, nothing serious.” He decides to leave out how he would come home to Bucky, smelling of sweat and other men, and how Bucky would kiss the taste out of his mouth, excited by it. “But he was it for me, and I was it for him.”

“I am aware of these kinds of understandings,” Verity said, not looking at him. “So you suggested the Ball and Chain.”

“Yeah. Roy said he didn’t go there much, but he knew a nice place called the Black Cat. He took me along and Gracie looked me up and down asked Roy if he was, uh, soliciting minors. Not those words. I said I was twenty and I didn’t suck cock for remuneration, would she like a resume, or words to that effect.”

“And she didn’t throw you out.”

“Oh, she laughed and poured me a drink. Said I was a mouthy little shit and not to start fights, she kept a quiet place. I knew Bucky would like that, so I brought him along the weekend after.”

“Quiet meaning?”

“Quiet meaning they didn’t get busted by the cops ever, they didn’t let in people who might be blackmailers.”

“Steve, can I record this?”

“Sure.” She gets out a little tape recorder and fiddles with it. Steve tenses up. He has a feeling that if Bucky has bugged the room, as he suspects, this might be the thing that will get him angry enough to come out. If he’s the Bucky Steve knows, anyway.

“So, you took Bucky to the Black Cat.”

“He liked it better’n the Ball and Chain. He liked Roy too. And Bernie, Bernie was a real handsome guy. Polished, you know, elegant.” Once Steve and Bucky had taken Bernie home with them for a night, which Verity probably shouldn’t know. “He was evasive, never could find out his job, but I think his da was a pastor or a preacher.”

“You know, your accent has shifted a lot since we started talking.”

“Has it?” Steve says absently, listening.

There’s a thumping sound outside, as of someone running along a corridor. The door slams open.

“You fucking moron!” Bucky hisses, stalking into the room. He grabs Verity’s tape recorder and crushes it. She yelps.

“I knew you’d bugged the room,” Steve says, smiling helplessly. Bucky whirls to face him. He’s wearing a blue janitor’s uniform and a beard, and he looks insane. Steve’s never been so happy.

“You need to be protected from yourself. You need protective custody. You can’t just tell some stranger-“

“I’m really sorry about the tape recorder,” Steve tells Verity, leaning sideways so he can see past Bucky. “He’s not going to hurt you.”

“I – yeah, sorry lady,” Bucky says, more quietly. “I didn’t mean to scare you, sorry. But this fucking moron was about to ruin his life, so-“

“I know what I’m doing!” Steve insists.

“You have never, ever know what you were doing. You just do it and then act like you had a plan all along. Every day since nineteen-fucking twenty-fucking five-”

“I love you so much,” Steve says fondly.

“I love you too!” Bucky shouts.

Verity coughs.

“Sergeant Barnes, I presume. This raises quite a few questions-”

“Classified,” Steve says, overlapping with Bucky’s “You don’t want to know.”

“-which I will happily not ask, but either you or I should probably leave this office, because I think University Security are coming.” There is a sound in the corridor, as of many feet advancing slowly.

“Running from the rent-a-cops, how the mighty have fallen,” Bucky says.

“I think we can take them,” Steve jokes.

“Oh good lord, you’re a nightmare.” Verity says, rolling her eyes. “I’ll deal with them.” She leaves, closing the door behind her.

“I really do love you,” Steve says. “I looked everywhere.”

“I know. Following you around was a pain in the ass.” Bucky shifts from foot to foot. “Look, Steve, I’m not the same-“

“I don’t give a shit. I’m not the same either.”

“-I mean it, I’ve done some really bad things, and you’re a national hero-“

“I miss you so much, Buck.”

“-I have nightmares-“

“Me too.”

“-and you’d be better off without me.”

“If you leave me again I will go to the Republican National Congress, to which I am invited, and I will tell them live on stage about the time you and Bernie spit-roasted me.”

“You fucking moron,” Bucky says, and kisses him.


	4. Chapter 4

Verity comes in to find Bucky practically sitting in Steve’s lap, and smirks as he springs up.

“I told security that a couple of my grad students were having a messy break-up, and that I was capable of handling it. You’re fine.” She laughs suddenly. “You know, I think this story could make my eventual book more popular than the Bible – and they say the humanities are unprofitable!”

“About that,” Steve says quickly, “We need to talk – Bucky and I – and-“

“Oh, please, go home. I’ll let you know when I find anything new.”

“Rick was a file clerk in Mount Sinai,” Bucky says. “And Bernie’s dad can’t have been a pastor, Steve.”

“My hand to God, he told me once he helped his dad write his sermons.”

“Bernie wrote sermons? My whole world is a lie.” The joke falls flat. Steve can’t quite bring himself to laugh at that. “Yeah, we should go. I’ll meet you at your apartment.”

“You can’t come with me?” Steve felt a distinct aversion to letting Bucky out of his sight.

“I’ll meet you.”

“You’d damn well better,” Steve warns, his voice low. He’s not sure he can let Bucky walk away, but when it comes to it he does, and it only hurts a little. Maybe it’s because Bucky’s not just alive, but so obviously himself, so much better that Steve could have hoped.

He waits in his apartment for forty-five doubt-filled minutes before Bucky shows up, knocking on his window.

“Your fire escape has shitty security.”

“I wanted you to be able to get in,” Steve says, taking him in. Dirty, a little thinner, off balance with the weight of the metal arm, beard with some threads of white among the brown, clear blue eyes. Hi hands itch to touch.

“Is that why you’ve been wandering all over town, getting your face in the papers? You could have been killed, you know.”

“I wanted you back.” He takes a step towards him. “I thought I was going to be alone here forever.”

“You have to take better care of yourself, Stevie,” Bucky says, taking a hesitant step towards him. “You have to be okay, or I can’t be.”

“Roy’s dead,” Steve tells Bucky quietly.

“I heard.” Bucky comes a final step closer and leans his forehead against Steve’s.

“I mean everyone’s dead, obviously, but Roy’s dead.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“I’ve been telling Verity everything I can remember. Do you… what do you remember?”

“Bits and pieces. It’s not just what Hydra did, I think. I’ve been awake for some of the time since you crashed. Maybe ten years, or more. Things fade.”

“Is there anyone else you want to look for? I looked up your family, you have a couple of nephews and grand-nieces running around.”

“I don’t want to see them,” Buck says sharply. Then, softening, “Not yet, anyway. You’re looking for Bernie, Gracie, Charlie and Rick, right? And Gracie’s kid Dolores?”

“Dolores? I never picked up her name.”

“Gracie got me to babysit once.”

“You were such a nice, trustworthy young man,” Steve says, gently mocking him. “Mothers always loved you, except for how you hung around with me.”

“Aw shucks ma’am, just keeping him out of trouble!” Bucky says, falsely bright. “And now look at you.”

“I’ll tell Verity about Dolores next time. Might help. Or you could.”

“I know you want to find them, but is it worth the risk, telling this woman all your secrets? Don’t tell me the future is different. Laws can’t protect you from people’s opinions. And don’t tell me she can keep a secret, nobody can keep a secret like this.”

“Wasn’t planning to keep it for long. We can leave your name out of it if you want.”

“Oh, because people will believe Captain America’s gay-“

“-bisexual-“

“-whatever, but that the guy living with him is straight-“ Steve kisses him again.

“When are you moving in?”

“Just did,” Bucky says, then, hesitantly, “unless you don’t-“

“Now is good. Now is perfect.” Steve is smiling like a fool, can’t seem to stop himself. “Give it a couple of days, we’ll talk again. See if I can’t persuade you about coming out.”

“A couple of days?” Bucky gives him an amused look. “What are we going to do for two days?”

“You, me, alone, in an unmonitored flat? I got some ideas. You could check out my bedroom ceiling, for a start.”

Bucky groans, burying his face in the side of Steve’s neck.

“You’re lucky I love you already. Get me some food, I’m taking a shower first.” He kisses the side of Steve’s neck and pushes him away, heading for the bathroom. “Your bedroom ceiling’d better be good, because I want to look at it for hours.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for historic racism and police brutality.

Verity straightens out her notes. She has acquired another chair from the grad student's study room down the hall. Bucky –she can’t help but think of him by the name Steve uses – is holding hands with Steve. He’s obviously not entirely comfortable, but he’s also not letting go.

“So, this book. I’m planning an extensive discussion of pre-war gay subcultures, focusing on the Black Cat. I’ll publish a few articles first, of course. Are you happy to be named?”

“I am,” Steve says, with a quick look at Bucky.

“I’m not,” Bucky says flatly. “I don’t have a lot of faith in people.”

“I’m perfectly happy to present it as a conversation with one or two anonymous, extremely old men.”

“I want to come out publically,” says Steve. “By the time your first article is out, I’ll have made the announcement.”

“It’s never the easy way with you,” Bucky says long-sufferingly.

“I spent a long time thinking about how much effort we spent hiding, and lying, and how you ended up dead anyway,” Steve says evenly. “This is the easy way.”

Bucky looks at him for a long moment.

“Okay. Don’t name me in the article, though,” he adds to Verity. “I have… other things on my plate right now.”

“I doubt anyone will enquire about my anonymous sources if Steve Rogers’ name is mentioned. You can tell me if you change your mind,” Verity says. “Any time.”

“Did you have questions?” Steve asks, changing the subject.

“I do, but first: Grace Everett. By the way, thank you for that information, Bu- Sergeant Barnes. I have found records of her renting an apartment down the street from the Black Cat, apartment twelve, building eighty-five. She lived with her daughter Dolores and her sister Rose, who was a wheelchair user and in poor health. Rose died in 1951. Grace moved to Pennsylvania and bought a boarding house. Her daughter Dolores attended the Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, studying nursing, in 1958.” Verity produces a photocopy of a sepia-toned matriculation photograph. Dolores’ head is circled, but it’s difficult to make out her features.

“She graduated and worked at Bryn Mawr hospital. She eventually specialised as a research nurse. The increased salary allowed her to support her mother Grace.”

Steve smiles. Verity looks away.

“I’m so sorry, Steve. Dolores died in police custody in 1967, with her husband Paul Delancy. Records are so sparse I think they must have been destroyed. It was most probably a case of police brutality. Gracie was by then over seventy, although I don’t have a record of her birth year. She died not long afterwards, in 1968.”

“Police bru- oh God,” Steve says. “That’s…” He runs a hand over his face. “Poor Gracie.”

“No prosecutions?” Bucky asks, sounding as if he already knows the answer. Verity shakes her head.

“I’m sorry I don’t have better news for you.”

“History doesn’t really do happy endings,” Bucky says wryly.

“Did they have any family?” Steve asks, looking for something, anything that he can do.

“I’m sorry,” Verity repeats. “Paul had one sister, I can see if she had any children, but Grace must have changed her name when she moved to New York. I can’t find anything further back than 1935.”

“Makes sense,” Bucky says, his voice remote.

“Jesus.” Steve wipes a hand across his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Steve, do you want to keep going?” Verity asks. It’s painful to watch him hunched over in a plastic chair, holding Bucky’s hand. Steve has so much power, all of it entirely useless to affect the past.

“Yes,” he says firmly, though his eyes are damp. “I want to know.”

Verity sighs. “I just hope I can find you better news.”

“The truth will do,” Steve says. “Speaking of the truth, you had questions.”

“Does he always drive himself this hard, Sergeant Barnes?”

“James,” Bucky- James says, looking at her as if she’s passed a test. “And yes, he always has. It’s infuriating,” he says fondly.

“Tell her about that time in the Ball and Chain,” Steve suggests.

“The biker gang, oh God that took years off my life,” James says, and launches into the story, giving cover to Steve as he discreetly dries his eyes.


	6. Chapter 6

Steve doesn’t really have a chain of command any more. Considering what he got up to even when under orders, Bucky finds this a somewhat harrowing situation. He’s left to tell Steve exactly what he thinks about Steve’s plan to publically announce his sexuality, and how it resembles tying meat to his dick and jumping in the fucking ocean. Under duress, Steve phones Sam about his plan to ‘call a reporter, get it over with, and then hole up until the worst of it dies down.’

“No, no, no, no,” Sam says emphatically. “Did – wait, you sound suspiciously happy. You found him?”

Bucky rolls his eyes at Steve’s guilty look and takes the phone. He thinks that living with Steve again, risky as it is, is good for him. He’s remembering a lot more. This feeling is an old feeling. He calls it ‘affection’.

“Hello, Staff Sergeant Wilson. Steve is still the worst liar in the USA. I’m sorry about the, uh, recent past. You should probably come over to talk, unless you’re using a burner phone.”

“Wow. Hand me back to Steve,” Sam says.

“I’m fine, honestly,” Steve says, “No, really, Everest. Come over.”

“A code word?” Bucky asks rhetorically. “Good thinking. We should work some out, just in case.”

“I was hoping not to need any more code words,” Steve says wistfully, but they do anyway.

Sam makes his feelings clear when he arrives.

“You blew off keeping me in the loop for a two-day booty call, essentially.” Sam says, mock-scolding.

“It’s been seventy years. Didn’t you say I should do what makes me happy?” Steve ducks his head and smiles softly. Bucky wants to do those two days all over again at the sight of it.

“I’m not even mad, just – did you even stop long enough to eat? Don’t answer that.”

“Steve’s a champ, what can I say,” Bucky says, deadpan. He’s pretty sure Sam Wilson is straight, but he seems too comfortable with Steve for that to be the case.

“You’re kind of a dark horse.” Sam says, looking at him thoughtfully. “Actually, what should I call you?”

“James,” Bucky says. He doesn’t know why he guards his name this way. Maybe it’s some strange reverse possessiveness he has, that only Steve gets to use it.

“Steve, you said you weren’t planning to come out before you talked to Verity. Why now?”

Bucky frowns. Steve leans forward confidently, like he’s thought it all through.

“So that when Bucky and I get married, the news stories will be about our relationship and not about how you can’t be forced to testify against your spouse. I mean, I’d marry him anyway, but the timing of the coming out announcement is about making sure we get to have a married life together.”

“If - when I get caught they’re not going to put me on trial. I’m going to get shot in the street,” Bucky says, focusing on the only sane part of that.

“Not if you’re Captain America’s husband, they’re not.”

“Are you kidding me? I’ll get more shot, they’ll use a Howitzer and blast me off the face of the earth. You think people are like you, Steve, and they’re not. People are mean and scared.”

“It’s legal now. I’d have asked you years ago if we could have.” Steve squares his jaw. Bucky recognises that look. That’s the look that Steve has when he’s about to give his dinner to a homeless woman or talk back to a cop.

“Legal doesn’t mean squat.” Bucky tries to lower his voice, to plead instead of shouting. “They’ll take you down and they’ll use me to do it. I can’t, Steve.”

“No one’s ever going to use you again.”

“Still a no.”

“I’m still going to come out.”

“Fine. Just don’t do it because of me. It’s going to make my life a hell of a lot harder, staying off the radar while all the reporters picket your street.”

“We can’t hide forever, Buck-“

“-I know that, I just want to have some time with you before-“

“-I just want to get it over with-“

“-they catch me and lock me up for what I’ve done-“

“-so we can live together without looking over our shoulders.”

“-or kill me.”

Sam looks like he’s watching a tennis match.

“You are not the war heroes I was expecting. James, who exactly do you think is going to kill you?”

“CIA, FBI, police, army. I don’t know, whoever kills enemies foreign and domestic.”

“You don’t seem like a threat right now,” Sam says, and Bucky will admit that Steve’s old sweatpants hanging off his hips don’t really give him a menacing edge.

“I could be. The only thing the world knows about me is that I tried to kill you two and Agent Romanov.”

“So tell them a different story. People like love stories.”

Bucky feels betrayed. He had assumed Sam was the sensible one.

“What, I tell the world I’m alive and Steve and I are fucking, everyone will forget about all the assassinations? They’ll think it’s just dandy that Cap is queer?”

“Some of us will. For the rest, it’ll be enough publicity to keep any of the agencies from hauling you in and disappearing you.”

“Oh, so it’ll be a public execution. Great.”

“We don’t have to get married if you don’t want to,” Steve says quietly. “I shouldn’t have assumed.”

“I didn’t mean that,” Bucky says helplessly. He glances over at Sam and lowers his voice. “Of course I want to, Stevie, but you’re Captain America now.”

“Fuck that. I want you, and we’ve waited long enough.”

“Make him get you a diamond ring,” Sam advises. Steve and Bucky both look at him, puzzled.

“What the fuck would I want a diamond ring for?”

“It’s traditional.”

“Well, I’ve never heard of it.” Bucky looks over at Steve, who shakes his head. “You know what? Fine. On the condition that you get someone else to arrange all the press, someone better at this than you, I will marry you – Jesus, that sounds weird.”

“Natasha!” Steve says, his face lighting up. It turns out Natasha’s busy, but she puts them in touch with someone called, improbably, Pepper Potts, who hires them a scary publicist called Audrey Kramer. The first thing she does is shout at Steve for two full minutes. Bucky likes her.

After Steve makes the announcement they hide in a different apartment, rented by Audrey under a fake name, and keep the curtains closed.

“I’m going to marry a Catholic,” Bucky says musingly, his breath ragged as he collapses off of Steve. “Ma would have been proud.”


	7. Chapter 7

Verity comes to visit them in their secret apartment of forbidden love, as Sam keeps calling it.

“Well, Steve, you certainly keep your word. I think the University press officer either wants to erect a statue in my honor or shoot me. He hasn’t had this much work from the History department since one of the deans called George Washington a dickhead on live television.”

“You’ve written the article already?”

“The Black Cat: a study of pre-war covert queer social networks.” She hands Steve a sheaf of white pages covered in 12-point text.

“Snappy,” Bucky comments dryly.

“Titles were never my forte. Hari – the press officer – wanted me to put Steve’s name in the title, but it seemed a tad gauche.”

“Fox News is calling me a traitor to American values and some supposedly Christian website has put out a call for my execution,” Steve says. “Your restraint may be misplaced.”

“But I’m an academic,” Verity counters. “The day an academic finds the cure for cancer, it will be published as ‘A targeted cell division blocker with broad applicability in oncological management’. Only charlatans have to advertise.”

“Howard Stark is rolling in his grave,” Steve says, flipping through the paper. There are a few photos – one of himself pre-serum, one of the site of the Black Cat in 1963, when it was still a bar, although apparently called the Lucky Clover.

“I had to crop that photo from a newspaper article about a motorcycle crash. Not easy to find. I can send you a copy?”

“Nah,” Steve shakes his head. “It’s the people that make a place.”

“I’d like one,” Bucky says. “Gimme that, Steve, you’re not even reading it.” He picks up a pencil as he leafs through, and circles a few words here and there.

“I’ll leave it with you. Let me know if you’re uncomfortable with any of the wording. I’m sending it to the editor tomorrow at two. Now, for the real purpose of my visit – Bernard Washington.”

“You found Bernie?” Steve says.

“Bernard Washington, born 1920, died 2005. Long life, loving family. Married Sally Lincoln in 1946, they had three children and eight grandchildren.” She puts down seven photographs. Bernie as a young man, scarcely different from Steve’s memories of him. Bernie and a beautiful woman in a wedding dress with shining skin and high cheekbones. Bernie middle-aged, still handsome and trim, in colour for the first time, holding his son. Bernie using a walking stick to attend a rally for Rodney King. Bernie in a hospital bed, his cheeks sunken with age, smiling up at his daughter.

“He started out writing his father’s sermons, then went into advertising, then worked behind the scenes in politics. Something of a way with words apparently.”

“Yeah, that’s for sure. God, he could talk you into anything, that guy. Between him and Steve-”

“Hey, we never dragged you anywhere you weren’t happy to go – not in New York, anyway.” Steve says. “Go on, Verity.”

”He moved out of the city to a rather lovely house in Long Island when his third child James was born.”

“No fucking way,” Bucky says, delighted. “He named a kid after me?”

“James Steven Washington.”

“Aw, Bernie,” Steve says, sentimentally.

“Sally died in 1996, at which point he started quietly cohabiting with her cousin John, also a widower.”

“Yeah, that sounds like Bernie,” Bucky says. “Always with a back-up plan.”

“I’ve found his family. It took a little bit of diplomacy, but Bernard’s granddaughter said she would be interested in meeting some old friends of her grandfather.” Verity leans in earnestly. “She has his diaries – right from the war to the present day! – and she says she can bring them with her. Let me put you in touch.”

Steve’s nodding even as she says the words.

“I can’t meet her,” Bucky says regretfully. “Too dangerous. Maybe – Steve, could you wear an earpiece, so I can ask questions through you?”

“I’ll ask Audrey about setting up a hotel room,” Steve says. “Somewhere secure. Bernie would never forgive me if I got his grandchildren hounded by reporters.”

Dee Washington shows up wearing a BlackLivesMatter t-shirt, dreadlocks, and piercings all down one earlobe. Even so, Steve can see she looks like Bernie, something familiar in the shape of her skull and the bridge of her nose.

“Oh my God, Shana owes me twenty bucks,” she says looking at Steve. “I told her Steve and Bucky wasn’t a common pair of names, but she said Grandpa couldn’t have been talking about you.”

“I’m surprised he never mentioned me more widely. Grateful, though. Verity tells me you have Bernie’s diaries.”

“I’m the family history buff,” she explains, tucking a stray lock behind her ear. “Grandad did all kinds of stuff in the war, and afterwards with the civil rights movement. We talked about it when I was a kid – the age-appropriate bits, anyway. After Grandma died he started telling me about the times he had before the war, before they met, and when he passed he left me his papers. They’re not as good as his stories, but it’s a little like talking to him.”

“Bernie could always tell a good story,” Steve says, smiling. “He was a close friend.”

Dee blushes.

“Um. He mentions you in his diaries. My grandfather was, uh, quite the writer.”

“What does she know?” Bucky hisses.

“Oh,” Steve says. “What did he mention?”

“Well. Um. Your announcement wasn’t quite as surprising to me as it could have been. After my Grandma passed, I came out, and my Grandpa – well, let me tell it properly. It was Thanksgiving. I was sixteen, and I’d just got my first girlfriend, and my aunt-by-marriage Catherine, now divorced, said it was a shame I wasn’t going to pass on my lovely hair anymore; kinda snide, so I knew what she meant. Grandpa looked at her from the head of the table and said ‘Catherine, I’ve sucked more dick than you have. Leave the homophobia outside when you come to my home, and don’t talk to my grandchildren that way anywhere.’ I was so happy to be defended like that.”

“I had a type,” Bucky murmurs in his ear.

“He never actually told me that he’d known Captain America,” Dee went on, “but he did mention Steve and Bucky in his diaries. Nothing explicit, but he was quite… poetic, about your friend. Not as much as he was about my Grandma later, those parts are – well, I have to skip them, frankly.”

“So he loved Sally, that’s good,” Bucky says, as Steve excuses himself to go to the bathroom.

“Bisexual,” Steve says under his breath. “Look it up.”

“Where did all these bisexual men come from,” Bucky mutters in Steve’s ear.

“It’s like you’re confused that someone might choose to have sex with men even if women were around,” Steve murmurs, washing his hands.

“I’m confused that Bernie and you actually liked dames, and I was the one taking them dancing every Saturday night.”

Steve turns his laugh into a cough as he leaves the bathroom.

“So, Captain Rogers,” Dee says. “Why did you look me out?”

“I wanted to find out what had happened to Bernie. I wanted to meet his family, and I hoped you would let me read Bernie’s diaries,” Steve says sincerely. “Whatever sections you’ll allow me to.”

“I suppose I can trust Captain America,” Dee says, sounding more at ease. “I actually brought scans with me – I keep the actual diaries in controlled storage. They’re all pdfs.” Steve takes the USB stick she gives him. It’s not Bernie, but it feels like a message from him.

“I can’t thank you enough. If you ever need anything I can help with,” Steve says, pulling out a pen, “this is my cell number.”

“Wow. Yeah, I – I’ll send you mine,” Dee says. “If you ever want to talk about Grandpa.”

She hugs Steve when he leaves. Steve has the strangest sensation of the past underneath the future, Bernie’s arm around his shoulder overlying Dee’s.


	8. Chapter 8

Bucky buries his face in Steve’s shoulder when Steve gets back, like he’s been gone for far longer than a couple of hours. Steve feels it too. They’ve been parted so brutally, not just from each other but from their whole lives, that any further separation is hard to bear. With time they may recover, but for now Steve breathes in the smell of Bucky’s hair and holds him as close as he can.

“Hungry?” Steve asks, after a while.

Bucky peels himself off Steve reluctantly.

“Yeah, I could eat. Open up Bernie’s diaries, I’ll make something.”

Steve starts up his laptop and opens Dee’s files. They’re all organized by date, except for one at the end of the list – ‘Photographs, various dates’. Steve opens that first, scrolling down until he’s stopped by-

Steve’s phone buzzes. The text is from an unlisted number, signed NR.

_BB blown. Will hold off feds 48hr._

“Shit.” Bucky runs his hands over his face, then throws his shoulders back. “Okay. Steve, no matter how this ends, I love you.” He goes to their bedroom and starts packing, distributing weapons, money and food about his body as well as in a light rucksack.

“Going somewhere?”

“They know I’m here.”

“Yes,” Steve says gently. “They will soon. We’ve got a little time.”

“I have to run.”

“Bucky, what’s wrong.”

“…I think I’m scared,” Bucky says, his voice thin and forced. “Shit, I’m terrified.” He starts breathing hard. “T-talk to me.”

“We don’t have to run.”

“They’ll find me.”

“I know- Buck, Bucky, hey, look at me.” Steve moves to stand in Bucky’s line of sight. “Remember that time we left the Black Cat and ran straight into a couple of cops, remember what you said.”

“Just stroll on by,” Bucky murmurs.

“That’s right. Nat says the same thing. Don’t run, walk.”

Bucky looks at him, his eyes focusing again.

“I don’t want them to get you. I’d rather-“

“No one’s getting either of us. Someone arrests you, stay calm, I’ll get you out. Sam and Natasha are with us. We’ve got backup.”

“Okay. Okay, what’s the plan?” Bucky puts down the bag and starts to look more like himself, less wild-eyed.

“I need to show you something,” Steve says. He turns the screen of the laptop to Bucky.

It’s a picture of a photograph, labelled ‘1930s?’. Bernie smiles out at them in sepia tones, his arm round Roy’s shoulder. Gracie sits in profile at the piano, and behind them is the bar of the Black Cat. Sitting at the bar, their backs to the camera, a dark-haired man leans over to whisper in the ear of a blond man, an arm around his narrow shoulders. They’re turned away from the camera, but Bucky would recognize them anywhere.

“It’s us.”

“It’s us,” Steve says, regret and nostalgia and relief layered in his voice. “We were there.”

Bucky touches the screen with his metal fingers.

“We were so young.”

“Bucky, I didn’t ask this properly before,” Steve says quietly. “I love you, and I want it written down. I want it to be recorded in news and history. I want us to be together on paper the way we are in my heart.”

“Marry me,” Bucky says, the words pulled out of him. “I – yes. Marry me?”

Steve kisses him to answer his question, and Bucky can feel his smile in the curve of lips against lips.

“I got copies of our birth certificates from the Smithsonian collection. Connecticut has no waiting period for a marriage license. We might have to run a little bit after all.”

“One more daring escape, and then…”

“The whole rest of our lives. Bring your phone, I want a picture to hang on our wall.”

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Behind closed doors: collected oral histories of queer community in New York, 1930-1945. doi 10.1999/journal.amhistqstud.3255703](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10983972) by [quietnight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietnight/pseuds/quietnight)




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